


Ephemeria

by Pipes



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 17:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5594947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pipes/pseuds/Pipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't ask where they're going: it's a stupid slack question, one of those things you say just to say something, like nice weather we're having or how's your day been.<br/>Instead, she says, “The inside of my head was more or less an assortment of memories, oddly jumbled though they were. Why isn't yours?”<br/>“You care about more stuff than I do,” he says, without turning around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Amane?"

There's so much wrong with his voice. It's clear and pure as crystal, a February birthstone; if you held it up to the sun it would throw dancing spots of colour on your wall. It has no cracks, no veins. It's a child's voice, still— a child who's trying hard to be brave, to be a man, but who isn't quite there yet and knows it. She runs her tongue along the inside of her teeth.

"Amane, can you hear me? Um. Wow, this is really awkward, haha."

She knows just how he'd scream. He's never been hurt, not really, not like some of the others have, and that's precious. You never forget your first time; it breaks you, breaks you inside, and you never really go back together. That first shattering note of a thing undone.

"Mou hitori no boku says we shouldn't talk to you. He says we'll make it worse, but—but I think that's wrong! I mean, not that he's wrong, he's smart and his plans are great, but he doesn't really know you, Amane."

No, Yugi. He knows me better. He knows trouble, and you don't. Get away.

"Do you remember back at Duelist Kingdom? Well, I—I mean I have no clue if you remember or not, seeing as how the spirit of the Ring was kind of messing with your head. But everything was going crazy with Pegasus stealing people's souls, and—And I know we'd just met, but I feel like you became part of the group, you know? Without you and my friends, I'd have been done for. I was freaking out, and I think the rest of the group was, too. I don't really remember much from that time, but you. . . You stopped freaking out and were just so sensible. It was like you were totally in control, calm in the face of potential destruction. And to be honest, I'm freaking out a bit now, Amane. So. . I don't know. Help calm me down? Be the sensible one, again. I just want my friend back. . . Amane, can you hear me?"

"Yugi, no! Get away from the microphone! I am serious, drop it!"

Ah, the loud, blond one. And he is, too. She can hear real terror in his voice, terror for his friend, and she hisses a little with pleasure at the knowledge.

"I told you—"

"I know, but I'm not going to stick her away down here and ignore her!"

"Yes, Yugi, we have to. That is exactly what we have to do. We need to keep her down here and forget that she even fucking exists. Anything you tell her is just going to give her more power, do you understand? There's nothing left, it's all that thing now. Starting up a chit-chat is like opening a door for the devil and then taking a nap."

"We weren't even talking! I mean, she doesn't even say anything, I was just—"

Their voices move out of range of the microphone, become faint fuzzing noises and are lost altogether. Silence trickles back down the walls. Amane Bakura shifts in her chains so that the cold iron burns more fiercely against her wrists and ankles, and tries not to go to sleep.  
——————————————————————————————

In her nightmares it always escapes.

It doens't matter how; it never does, in dreams. She's just free, free to whisper and slither down and out of the dark tunnels, toes brushing the floor, the ragged tresses of her hair grown impossibly long and fluttering out behind her like wings, free to sniff the cold metallic air and tongue her cracked lips and moan with the hunger of it.

She finds them, eventually, movement aided by shifting from shadow to shadow in mere moments.

One by one they try to fight. Jounouchi's usually first; he runs at her screaming, eyes wild, hands clenched into fists, _hellbitch, I knew we should have fucking blown that cave to bits with you inside_ , but it's not real rage, it's terror playing dress-up, and she's not interested. She punches a shadow through his gut and up into his chest, lets it twist and rummage wetly for a couple seconds as he gurgles in disbelief, then backhands him into the wall and sweeps on. She doesn't even bother to watch him die.

Yugi begs her to remember who she is. It seems only right that even his last words should miss the point. She stares into his precious eyes, wide and scared, and then drives a slim point through each one with a soft crack of bone and a squelch of jelly. How's that for humor, hm? He flops around like a fish on a hook, making high inarticulate noises, until she snaps her fingers and he bursts like rotten fruit.

She licks him off the corner of her mouth and keeps going.

Bakura is lying in wait, knife blade raised and at the ready, but it shakes and he's crying, really crying, tears are trickling down and staining his face, and she's disgusted to think she was ever aligned with this creature, that any part of her ever loved him. She takes a minute to punish him, snakes of black ice finding every gate and weakness in his body and wrenching their way inside deliciously slow, and by the time he finally dies she's confident he's wishing they hadn't separated. Happy that the thing left over no longer looks human, she drops it with a damp slap on the floor and drifts on, humming a tune.

Ishizu, strangely, never tries to fight. She doesn't even try to talk. She just looks up at Amane with knowing, sad eyes, and alone of them all she's not scared. For a second fury boils in Amane's gut— how dare this stupid little wretched woman not fear her? But then something like weariness takes over, and she cuts Ishizu in half at the waist with a single strike and is gone before the blood stops spurting.

That one always leaves her unsatisfied, somehow.  
——————————————————————————————

Days pass, probably. Little Amane, objective Amane, the Amane who doesn't get off on all the ways she's going to kill her friends, notes that she no longer needs to eat. Shortly after that she takes a sort of inventory of bodily functions and realises with ice-water fascination that she's not breathing any more; hasn't been for God knows how long. Once that's on the table she spends a relatively pleasant couple of hours distracted, unable to focus on anything but the way her chest isn't lifting and sinking, the way if she forces the muscles to work and pull in a lungful of dusty, ancient air it just feels weird and awkward 'til she blows it back out; like putting sand on your tongue and waiting for it to dissolve.

She is, officially, dead.

Well, not quite. Death is notoriously hard to define— the problem, of course, is how do you tell it apart from life—but she seems to remember the cessation of consciousness is required, and she's still conscious, even if she wishes she weren't. But her body has stopped, and she can't help feeling that's a significant point on any downward curve you choose to draw. An axis has been crossed. y is less than 0. The jury's still out on x.

Presumably the darkness is keeping everything in one piece. Perhaps it isn't? Perhaps she's going to rot? Sit glumly on the cold stone floor of her brain while the blood curdles and goes thick around her, skin turns papery, eyes and organs crumple. She watched a documentary about forensics once. What order does it happen in? What goes first? How long before bits actually start dropping off?

They all come to see her sometimes, except Bakura. Bakura, Anzu informs her sorrowfully, just can't bear it. I think it makes him too sad, Amane! Amane knows better. Sadness wouldn't stop him. Disappointment's another matter. They say you should never meet your idols, and that goes double when they're stapled to a wall, making noises like something blowing tar through a straw. The whole business is appallingly undignified. Bakura wouldn't like it.

Mai's a regular, though, which figures; frequency of visits and respect for anyone else's leadership abilities are inversely proportional. She's there nearly as often as Yugi —chiding, nagging, mocking, goading. Come on, Amane. They told me you were strong. It's a good tactic, a lot better than anyone else's, and were their roles reversed Amane thinks she'd probably be doing the same. She appreciates it. But it doesn't work. What she really wishes is that they'd all just stay away, because the thing in her is getting stronger and it's getting smarter. She's learnt to feel them, now, up there in their safe station behind branded sheet steel and bulletproof glass, even when they say nothing; bright coloured shapes that wobble and shine, swirly blotches of life on a dead black slide. Yugi's a jagged scribble of amethyst and red and he makes her hungry. Ishizu is a chiming harmony, cream and deep, deep blue. And most often of all there's the fizzing, crackling knot of vivid white that translates as Kaiba. He never talks, never says a word, and if it weren't for her new party trick she'd never know he was there. But he is, every day, sometimes for hours. Math should have told her as much.

One space of time she wakes from winding an obsidian ribbon round Mai's slim throat and feels a new light, a sound-shade that's not in her lexicon yet, and thinks: Bakura! But it can't be. It's dull purple, hard to make out, and cold, and it fades in and out of the blackness of her sight irregularly. Vibrates: the hum of magic, ancient and powerful, the agony from a moment years prior. It tastes like licking a penny. And every minute or so, it flashes with color so bright it hurts her teeth. Gold, shining bright into the blinded pupils of her eyes.

She's not even sure it's a person. But it's new, so she has to try. The same way she does every time, she sends out a thought, the tiniest thought she can think, white and feeble like a new root from a bulb, nothing fierce or demonstrative enough to trip the alarms and drown her brain in black thrashing brine, and she thinks:

help me

And a voice —crisp, commanding, plainly surprised — says okay.


	2. Chapter 2

She's sitting in a chair, straight-backed, her hands folded demurely— a word that puzzles her the moment it appears— in her lap. She's wearing what some tiny, invincible girl-center of her being notes critically as a very nice dress. It has a high waistline, and ribbons, and lacy bits. She knows what those are called, just not right now. It's purple. She likes purple. She smells smoke, and flowers. What the _Hell—_

She goes to stand, fluffs it somewhere in the early stages, collapses to her knees on fleecy carpet and throws up, a lot. God, it's amazing. Years ago she used to have a morbid fear of being sick, but now she can only look back and smile, in between racking heaves, on the follies of her youth. How could anyone not enjoy something so earthy, so vital, so alive? Dead girls don't vomit. Every clench of her gut is a tiny benediction. She is pleased that she still knows the word _benediction._

She's on about her third stomachful when it occurs to her that nothing's coming up. That stops her mid-spasm. The pale blue wool between her splayed hands remains pristine. Her mouth tastes foul and there's an acid burn at the back of her throat, but that's it. She could swear—

Someone's watching her. She kneels up, wipes her mouth delicately with the back of one hand though she knows there's nothing there to wipe. Amane Bakura: all class, all the time. Then she looks cautiously over her left shoulder.

A boy of about her own age is sitting in a wooden chair, elbows propped on its carved arms. His fingers are steepled under his nose like he's Gendo Ikari — does anyone actually sit like that in real life? Evidently yes — and he's regarding her dispassionately. Corn-silk hair flows across his forehead and falls over his shoulders in a just-so manner. Narrow face with high cheekbones, all tapering down to a chin framed between the starched white fins of an impressive wing collar. Dark riding-jacket and a small frill of lace at the throat, like a Regency clergyman. He has dark, earth-tanned skin and over-exaggerated eyeliner that miraculously frames his face nicely.

“Is this some religious thing?” he asks.

“Vocal training,” she says. “Opens the airways; clears phlegm. Helps me hit top F.”

He nods, like this is a perfectly satisfactory answer, which is a little worrying. For starters, she's an alto. She stands up gingerly, careful not to tread on her skirts, and surveys the room: the fire in the hearth, dark oak furniture and little glass ornaments twinkling on the shelves, big picture windows looking out into blackness.

“Why are we _here?_ ”

He gives a little one-shoulder twitch that probably wanted to be a shrug when it grew up. “Fuck if I know. I told your brain to take us somewhere safe. Where's here?”

She eases herself back into the chair and busies herself with fussing and smoothing for a second or two before she answers. “It's from a film. A film I loved when I was... very young.”

“Huh. What kind of film?”

She makes herself look him dead in the eyes and says, “It was about a princess, who discovers she can do magic.”

Neither of them move. The fire in the hearth crackles realistically.

“That sounds like a really shitty movie,” he says thoughtfully.

“As a matter of fact, it won three Academy Awards,” she snaps.

A window explodes. Glass rains down on the carpet in flecks, and some thing — a huge, pulsating tongue of shadow, slick and wet — gropes blindly into the room for a second before flopping down against the wall and lying there like a vast slug. Black juice seeps from its underside and into the carpet. Somewhere far off she hears music.

“Yeah,” he says, “try not to feel. It likes feelings.”

“The warning's a little late, but appreciated. I'll remain as composed as the circumstances allow. May I ask your name?”

“Why?”

“You're in my head. I'm sure it must be etiquette.”

He moves as if to contradict her, but swallows the thought. “Marik Ishtar.”

“Amane Bakura.” At this point he really should get up and kiss her hand, but she'll let it slide this once.

“Ba- _kura,_ ” he repeats, and grimaces. “Delightful.”

She scans him; wrists wrapped lovingly in fabric and gold, hunched slightly forward and down as if shunning away from their newest guest in the scene.

“Well, we can't all be as robust as _Ishtar,_ ” she says coolly.

He's still thinking. “Hang on. The host? Bak—the spirit of the Ring's host.”

“Guilty as charged. I'll accept any punishment that does not involve any usage of that absurd nickname. Something with bamboo slivers, perhaps.”

It's strange hearing a voice other than Yugi say the spirit of the Ring, and a spark jumps a gap somewhere. She's still much too slow. It's like trying to think through a heavy cold. “You were at Battle City, weren't you? You had the Rod. Bakura mentioned you.”

“Oh, great.” He flings his hands up suddenly, and the movement's so fierce and sharp it doesn't even look showy; it's a neural flare, a flash of tension. She thinks of golden lights. “Thanks for that, asshole, thanks. Yeah, I had the Rod. Like we all need to be defined by the Items we held—“ 

She snorts, _the hypocrite_ , but motions for him to continue.

“Wonderful. Did he dig really deep, go for some insights? I've got a fucking horror story on my back too, that's crucial, can't get at what makes me tick 'til you've wrapped your mind around that little piece.”

“He also said you were quite determined,” Amane murmured mildly.

“Well, no shit.” He flaps a hand in dismissal. “I'm incredibly determined. And smart. I'm so smart it's not even funny. But, then again, the world likes to remind us it's not like being smart ever did anyone any good.”

She knows what he means a little too much to agree. “That's patently ridiculous, and more than slightly teenage. I would have thought the tomb-keepers placed a high premium on intelligence. Not to mention that none of us would have survived this entire saga for as long as we have without using our heads at least as often as our decks.”

“Nah.” He slumps back in his chair, the tension gone again. “You're talking about not being stupid. I'm talking about being smart. Not the same thing. I mean, look at Bakura, okay? He's not stupid. He's smart enough that he's not going to trip on his own feet and fall over. Rishid, too, a little less cohesive in regards to modern amenities, but he's not dumb. But they're not _smart._ ”

“Am I right in assuming that the membership list for your highly exclusive Smart Club remains fixed at a single name?”

“No, there's two of us, when Ishizu's not too busy digging herself into a hole for work and doodling little hearts over her papers like a preteen.”

Amane feels a sudden and profound need to be catty. “You, of course, disdain romance entirely as unworthy of your intellectual majesty.”

She's hoping for an eye-roll or a snort of contempt. What she gets is the sight of Marik Ishtar sinking a little further into himself and looking fixedly at his knees.

“No,” he says quietly, “I mostly disdain it because it never works.”

Something flaps at a window, and the panes rattle. The fire cowers in the hearth.

“I'm sorry,” she says eventually, on the basis that there really is no other way out of this one.

He looks up. “Nah, forget it. Like I say: you can be smart, or you can be happy. The glorious future of the tomb-keepers was choking on stale air even before my alter ego fucked it all up, so it's not like my intelligence would have helped me any back then. Let's talk about you. What's the plan?”

Amane blinks, archives as much of this comment as possible for future processing, and spreads her hands in mock-apology that isn't entirely mock. “I hadn't got much further than _don't kill everyone,_ to be perfectly honest. That's why I called in backup.”

He doesn't laugh, just nods. “Just in time, too. It's getting a bit difficult.” He jerks a thumb irritably at the broken window, beyond which she can just about see the night churning across itself in damp folds. Someone is playing the flute, a long way away, and much too fast. “I'd give you another day at the outside.”

“How do I get rid of it?”

He eyes her thoughtfully. “That what you want to do?”

“No, I'd rather my consciousness was devoured entirely by a psychotic atrocity of unimaginable malice. Do we really have time for stupid questions?”

“Ba— Amane, I never ask stupid questions. One more time. Are you sure you want to get rid of this thing?”

“What's making you think I wouldn't?”

His mouth quirks. “More like it. Okay, this thing's living in your brain. The only way to stop it is to kill it. Killing things in your own brain is risky. You kill the wrong part, you're a vegetable, or you're not you anymore.”

“But if I don't evict my _delightful_ room-mate _tout de suite,_ I will effectively cease to exist.”

“No-oo. Not quite. You'll exist, you just won't... well, put it this way, you won't care too much about terrible princess movies for little kids any more. Or, you know, people.”

“I will become, body and soul, a puppet of the shadows.”

“Yeah.”

“Upon which my first action will be to break free of my confinement and attempt to kill everyone I come into contact with, a demographic which incorporates not only all of my friends, but, I am assuming, all of yours, along with any innocent bystanders along the way. And, of course, you.”

“Yeah.”

“So if Bakura were here, he'd be shaking you by the lapels of that splendid riding-coat and howling his most inventive obscenities directly into your nostrils.”

“Yup.”

“Because there is no way you should be giving me any choice in the matter.”

He looks pained. “Of course you get a fucking choice! It's your brain. What kind of asshole do you think I _am?_ ”

“Marik, are you allowing _my personal preference_ to dictate whether or not everyone you love dies slowly and horribly?”

“Nah,” he says, and grins again, and slots his fingers together and pushes them sharply outwards with a noise like someone biting down on a mouthful of dice. “ 'Cause if you get out of those chains, I can fucking take you.”

She stares at him. He just smirks.

“My God. I can't decide whether your misplaced self-assurance is adorable or obnoxious. No, I tell a lie, it's obnoxious. I would _erase_ you.”

“I'm well versed in magic and I know a thing or two about, what was it, a _'psychotic atrocity of unimaginable malice'_ living in my head. I'm not going to come at you with nothing like certain idiots who should remain nameless. I'm going to hit you with my brain, and it's covered in spikes and weighs a fucking ton.”

She cups a hand to her ear. “What's that? Oh! The elder god monstrosity says people whom can use magic are particularly delicious.”

“No it fucking doesn't, it's an elder god. It says a lot of absolute bullshit no-one can pronounce, but which if translated would be pretty much _me beastie, me eat you now,_ in all caps and like 280-point bold underline.”

“The monstrosity is offended. It says it will blow up your home before it feasts on your soul, just to irritate you.”

“My 'home' is underground. I'd like to see it fucking try.”

She can't help it. She splutters with laughter, and the windows burst.

Shrieks and howling from outside, chittering noises like a flock of bats as the darkness surges in, lashing with feelers and sucking the heat from the air; the fire dies with a wet sizzle, the only light is the flicker of gold as it lances from Marik's hands and up, burning, shredding off little wisps of black that flutter like damp cotton; he's out of his chair, face contorted in fury, yelling something.

“Oh, you want a fucking _fight,_ do you—“

She jumps up wildly and there's a door, the front door to her apartment, stark white and completely out of place in the middle of a paneled wall. She darts across and tries the handle, and it clicks open with just the catch and the weight it always does, or did. The room behind her is a shrill storm of insanity, tendrils whipping and slashing, deep and dreadful voices murmuring things she knows she doesn't want to hear. The stench of fire and salt is dizzying. Marik has his arms flung wide like an evangelist, ribbons of light punching into the swelling cloud of ink and hunger, but he might as well be throwing matches in the ocean; _nothing_ can stop this creature, and Amane knows that, because part of it is _her_ —

She grabs the back of the high collar and pulls, and to her surprise he's compliant and light, she drags him a full three stagger-steps back before he turns angrily to follow her. They run like children, headlong, heedless, and Amane is gratified to find that imaginary dresses don't catch at your legs and trip you up the way real ones do. Up a flight of stairs she half-remembers, across a sweep of desert that she definitely doesn't, through a fanciful hidden tower-bedroom in a castle on an island and through the other side even though she's damn sure that room didn't have an exit, she should be, she knew every brick of that place. And behind them, much too close, the crunching, splintering, unpleasantly wet sound of her mind being torn apart. She wonders if she'll ever write to her brother again.

Somewhere along the way she realizes she lost her grip on the boy's collar and now she's holding his hand, three of his long fingers clutched in her fist, tugging him along. She may not know where she's going, but she knows the way. The world ends behind them, and they keep running.

Eventually, as they lunge up another flight of stairs, feet skimming the treads without really making contact, the delirious speed of dreams, he says, “This is bullshit. Turn left.”

They're coming up to the door of her bedroom, and for a second she's seized with irrational panic that she might have left it in a mess.

“There is no left,” she says shortly. “The apartment doesn't—“

There's a left. All her life that wall's been blank, but now there's an old, carved stone door flush with it, a lever off to the right side. Marik smacks it with his free palm and it starts to grind open. Amane risks a glance behind them. Shadows are winding hungrily up the stairs, and she knows how they'll feel: knows the blissful cold that will sink through her limbs, the numb surrender to the coils of something far older and stronger and more powerful than herself; the taste of decay in her throat. Marik's fingers are hot and sweaty in her clenched hand. Clearly she has a good imagination.

Then they're slipping free and he's seizing her wrist instead, tight enough to hurt, and pulling—

The door's shut. They're standing in a short featureless corridor of sandstone, torches along the walls and a dusty floor that's potentially more dust than floor. At one end is the stone door, now closed and showing no inclination to open again, thank God. At the other is an identical door, but this one's significantly more modern with a normal handle and all. Marik lets go of her arm altogether and strides over to it, gripping the handle and turning impatiently. Amane fixes her eyes on the old door, willing tiny wisps of treacherous darkness not to come trickling up and around its edges.

The new door opens, and Marik sets his shoulders like a man about to go on stage.

The second they step through, his Regency garb blinks into an admittedly more practical outfit: khaki pants and a black sleeveless top. Amane manages to fight down a brief spasm of disappointment. To her fascination, her clothes change too; presumably the mind of Marik Ishtar has no processing power to waste on maintaining an Empire-line evening gown. She's abruptly clad in something wildly familiar, old jeans and boots and a black hoodie. She tugs on the hem of the fabric and peers down at herself.

“It was blue,” she says, puzzled, “not black.”

“Fuck!” says Marik with unexpected force. The hue changes, a gradual shift to lighten. He doesn't like making mistakes, then. Predictable, but nice to have it confirmed.

They're standing in a vast and gloomy hall, built from some ash-gray material that's too dull to be metal and too featureless to be stone. The ceiling is somewhere far overhead, lost in shadows. Great thick tree-trunk pillars, spaced at regular intervals, soar upwards and vanish into the same darkness. There's no way this can ever have been a real room: it's too big and too blank, there's nothing at all to suggest function, or purpose, or habitation. Even the door they came through has disappeared. It's just a space, bounded by walls. It looks as though the designer's going to come back later and add texture mapping, more torches, and a band of belligerent orcs.

“Be careful,” she jabs, “your imagination is running out of control.” Her voice doesn't echo, which is strangely unnerving in a space this size.

“Shush,” he says. He's not looking at her; he's standing tense, almost on tiptoe, craning his neck like he's trying to sniff the air.

She shushes, and immediately hears it. Very low, very soft: a hissing, whispering sound, like steam leaking from a pipe in some distant corner, sibilant and disturbing.

Almost as one, they move a little closer together.

For a few seconds, nothing stirs, and then a single shadow flickers across the far wall and is gone. It looks exactly as though someone just dodged past a light source behind them, except this room doesn't have any light sources yet; the dim glow in here doesn't come from anywhere, it just is. She looks down at her feet. No shadows there.

“Oh, fuck,” Marik says, very quietly. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Marik—“

“No. That's impossible. It doesn't work like that, it can't — you can't just jump a mental gap,you need a bridge, a link—“

“Marik,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady, “I think it can go anywhere I go.”

“But my mental shields— you have no fucking idea, even my defenses have defenses—“

“Yes. And you let me straight through them.”

He breathes out, a long, shuddering breath, and turns to face her.

“Right. Okay. Okay. It's fine. We can do this. I don't fucking care what this thing's got, nobody beats me in my own head. Not any more. I will not—Fuck. Come on, we've got to move.”

“You've got to move. Aren't you listening? Anywhere you take me, it can follow. I'll go back through the door, I don't suppose it cares about you, it just wants me—“

“If you go through that fucking door it will be like a snowflake falling in the desert. Trust me. My mind's built like a labyrinth, even a cosmic horror is going to have its work cut out getting through some of this shit. I can buy you time.”

“I don't _want_ you to buy me time!” she says desperately, and hears far off the slithering sound of wet and cold.

“Tough. My brain, my rules. If you get to dress me like something out of a history book, I get to save your ungrateful ass. Plus I've got a plan. Now stop feeling, you're getting it excited.”

 

They hurry down corridors as grim and dreary as anything in the ruins of a tomb. She glances left and right at shadows, sees carvings, chains, rust. The imagery's as subtle as a brick. Marik strides into some private storm, shoulders hunched up and forward, head down, hands in pockets, sloughing along like he expects the air itself to put up a fight. She doesn't ask where they're going: it's a stupid slack question, one of those things you say just to say something, like nice weather we're having or how's your day been.

Instead, she says, “The inside of my head was more or less an assortment of memories, oddly jumbled though they were. Why isn't yours?”

“You care about more stuff than I do,” he says, without turning around.

There are things we say that have no meaning; their only purpose is to be heard. _Hello. Goodnight. I love you._ The technical term for these is a phatic utterance. She bets he doesn't know that one, and saves it up.


	3. Chapter 3

Eventually they duck through several doorways in quick succession and come into a room that isn't grey. It's a perfect cube of the same material Amane saw earlier, about the size of her own bedroom. The walls are a deep beige; the floor is a rather pleasing soft lavender, and the ceiling is oak. The resulting aesthetic is absolutely catastrophic. She tries not to look up.

Marik has heaved shut a huge door in the wall through which they entered, and is busying himself with a bafflingly complex locking system of cogs, dials, pistons, springs, bolts, and cranks, which reminds Amane of puzzles she used to solve in picture-books as a child. She takes the opportunity to size up the room. It's almost entirely empty: there's a desk (bare), a chair (uncomfortable-looking), and, on the wall left of the door, a set of small framed photographs hanging in two neat rows. Five frames: two on the top, three on the bottom.

Intrigued, she sidles closer, sparing a glance at Marik's back, which is hunched over a set of particularly tiny cogwheels low down on the door. He's swearing under his breath. Another few seconds, then.

The pictures are all head-and-shoulder portraits of people, which surprises her a little, although she doesn't know what she was expecting—favourite foods? Great moments in the tomb? The three on the bottom row are all immediately familiar: Rishid, looking politely interested if a little amused; Yugi, smiling happily away; and in the middle, Bakura, fangs bared in his usual horrific parody of a warm and friendly grin. The two on the top are a man and a woman, and Amane only recognizes one of them. They're both wrapped in shrouds, and both have impressive hair. The one on the left has dark hair, wrapped with two golden bands in the front, and an almost imperceptible smile. The one in the centre has hair the same corn-silk shade as Marik's, though it's wrapped in a cloak or cover, Amane thinks, though this one's face is covered in a dark shroud, and the picture itself is blurry.

"That should fucking hold 'em," says Marik in satisfaction, and Amane spins neatly around but can't really disguise where she's standing. He looks at her, then at the wall, and then smacks himself violently in the forehead with one hand.

"Oh, fucking Hell. I knew I couldn't bring you this far without some shit dribbling out through the cracks. Stupid lousy useless blocks, what the fuck did I even put them in for if they're just going to cave first time some random girl gets past the outer walls?"

"The discovery that you have friends," she agrees, "has entirely squashed any faint hope I ever nurtured of respecting you. If I'd known I was going to stumble onto filth like this I'd have stayed at home. I hope you're suitably ashamed of yourself. Who's this?"

He hesitates, and she can see him gauging whether it’s worth the fight. Then something happens behind the guarded expression, and he makes a kind of hopeless snorting noise – half anger, half amusement – drags the chair one-handed away from the desk, and flops into it with the graceless, right-angled resignation of a clotheshorse collapsing.

“He—” he says. “He was—”

“Your father?”

“I thought girls were supposed to be subtle about sensitive stuff. Yes. That's my—was my father.”

“What happened to him?”

“I happened. _He_ happened.” he says tightly.

She thinks back. “Then I suppose I must have misunderstood just how dangerous he was. Going off of what I learned from Bakura, for starters, probably wasn't the best of ideas.”

“He wasn’t,” Marik mutters, staring at his hands. “My father was a fucking idiot. It was all my fault. I didn’t think – the fucking stupid rod, I mean, that’s such a lot of bullshit, how do you even – what the fuck was that thing made of?”

Two more pieces slot together, embarrassingly late, and Amane bites her lip.

“Your alter ego. The one who thought killing people was a joke.”

“If it was a joke,” he says, “it wasn’t fucking funny. I’ve never gone up against anything like that before. I don’t know what the Hell kind of juice it was running off. The first time round he had me convinced it was my fault, and— oh, fuck. I’m such a stupid asshole.” He jerks his head away angrily. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not upset!” he snaps. “I’ve just got better things to do with my time than take a leisurely guided tour of scenic Screwup City, population Marik Ishtar. Let’s just – ”

“If this is people you like, then why is Bakura here?” she breaks in, nodding at the first portrait.

He flushes, then, he doesn’t have a body but it still happens, she sees his face turn deep umber, and that tells her something useful, and it also makes something tighten a notch or two at the base of her throat.

“For fuck’s sake, Amane! Do you really want the whole catalogue? I’m a Goddamned liability. I’m a shitty mage, and a worse tomb-keeper. Every time I – every time I like someone, I fuck up somehow, and then they’re gone and I can’t fucking save them, I’m too late or too slow or too weak and I never save them– ”

The last word bites off in a gasp, and he chokes, and jack-knifes sideways with sudden and terrifying force. The chair topples and spills him onto the floor like a heap of sticks, jagged and agonized; his feet scrabble uselessly in tiny pedaling circles, and one long-fingered hand clutches at the strange smooth plane under him like he’s trying to claw it up and get at whatever’s beneath.

She’s down on her knees by him almost as fast. “Marik! What – ”

His back arches, his hands brace on the floor, and he makes a desperate whining sound, high and unbearable. Then he goes slack and starts coughing. Crimson droplets spatter the glossy purple of the floor. She reaches out to touch his shoulder and he spasms away as if from a red-hot iron, rolling over onto one side and then onto his back, gasping. Blood has dribbled from his nostrils and down across his thin lips, which are twisted in a kind of rueful grin.

“Ha,” he says weakly, and coughs again. “Fucker’s getting smart.”

“Oh, my God. Feelings.”

“Yeah. Thing’s living off the land. The second I access a memory, it weaponises it. I just got Dismal Fucking Failure right between the eyes at eight hundred metres per second. Stung like a bitch, too.”

“This is absolutely ridiculous. None of this is even your responsibility. I appreciate everything you’ve done, but it was my mistake, and I won’t see you hurt for it.”

“Shut up and give me a hand. Worst thing it could have done was give me a real fight. I’m going to throw the book at this motherfucker. It’s going to rue the day it tried to piss in Marik Ishtar’s head.”

“You are aware that you’re bleeding from your nose.”

“I don’t give two fucks where I’m bleeding from! And anyway, it’s not real blood, it’s just my body’s cute little way of saying hey, douchebag, shit’s not 100% okay over here. And my body can go fuck itself, I’m busy. Help me up, my legs are sulking, traitorous fucks.”

“Marik, you have no idea how powerful this creature is! You keep talking about it like it’s just some animal, some kind of fanged horror-movie predator with a lust for cheerleaders lost in the woods, but it’s no such thing. It’s a god. It’s magic. It’s what the other you hit you with, but worse. It’s an abomination and it’s using the inside of my head as a munitions depot. It’s old, and it’s strong, and it’s very, very smart.”

He spits blood onto the floor and this time the grin is genuinely dreadful. “Not as smart as me.”

She hadn’t known before today that it was possible to despair of someone so entirely that you want to kiss them. “Oh, for Christ’s sake – ”

“Amane, look. I know my limits, okay? I’ve had them repeatedly fucking dropped on me, I’d have to be pretty stupid not to. I know I can’t fight it. But you can. You’re both running off the same battery. It’s living in your apartment and reading all your books and trying on your clothes, but you still have right of ownership! You can kick it out. But you need me to show you how, or you’re going to get turned into paste in two seconds flat. Trust me. I promise I’m not going to fuck this up.”

“I didn’t for a moment suppose you were,” she says quietly.

She stands, grips the proffered wrist – her thumb and forefinger barely circle it – and heaves. He staggers upright and slumps back into the chair; smears absentmindedly at his mouth with the back of one hand, regards it critically, and grimaces.

“Right, here’s the thing. I can’t leave. The second I leave this room I hand over my brain, and if that thing gets behind the wheel here we are all of us fucked in every orifice we have, and a few we don’t. All I can do at this end is frag bits as they pop up. To kill it you’re going to have to go back into the unbelievable shitstorm that used to be your head, and you’re going to have to do it on your own. So we need to teach you mind-war.”

“Don’t I get a chair?”

“What?” He looks down at himself, up at her. “Oh, fuck! I didn’t think – Ra, how rude can you get, here – ” and he starts to lever himself back to his feet.

“Marik, I was joking. I’ll sit on the desk.”

He wavers, as though trying to work out whether she’s joking about joking, until she comes over and swings herself neatly onto the edge of the desk, legs dangling, one knee almost brushing his. Then he falls back awkwardly and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Uh. Okay. Let me think about this. Mind-war’s basically pretty simple. Imagine you’re in a swordfight. How d’you win?”

“I have no idea,” she says dryly. “I generally use dark energies from the realm of shadows to wrench my opponent’s soul from their fragile shell and cast it wailing into the abyss, and look where that’s gotten me.”

He inclines his head as though in formal acceptance of the point. “Yeah, fair. I generally use subversion and the weak wills of others and look where that’s gotten me. But pretend you’re being your asshole of a former tenant – ”

“Excuse me?”

He hesitates. “You know. Bakura. God help us fucking all.”

She only pauses a little. “. . . Okay.”

The high brow flattens out. “ Pretend you’re him, if you can fucking stand it, and you’re squaring off against someone who isn’t a mage. Jou, maybe. How do you play it?”

“From my limited acquaintance with swordplay, both experiential and fictional,” she says guardedly, “I gather the essential strategy is to defend oneself against attacks until one perceives an opportunity to strike one’s opponent decisively.”

“Okay, kind of dry, but yeah. Mind-war’s the same. You keep your shields up till you spot a chance to do some damage. The harder the other dude comes at you, the more he’s going to leave himself open, and eventually he’ll fuck up and you can ruin his shit.”

“That’s exactly what I said, but less precise and with more swearing. You and Bakura really do get on famously.”  
“Fuck up, see under, shut the. If you’re getting in a mindfight you need four things, okay? First one’s what we call a cloak.”

“Sorry, Professor, I’m still a little bewildered as to the ontological valence of all this theory we’re falling down. Are you simply persisting in the endearingly masculine habit of using martial analogy to describe situations which are, in fact, wholly unrelated to combat in any form? I’ve heard Bakura announce his intent to ‘kick the shit out of these dishes’ and ‘punch laundry in the face’ before now.”

He shifts irritably in his chair and sniffs up another bead of blood. “Okay, don’t try and fucking haze me with your ontological valence, save it for someone who’ll gawp. Ontology is currently a weak subject and you should forget about it. We are literally sitting in my fucking head. If I want us jumping over the green moon on a rainbow unicorn, for whatever stupid reason, that’s where we’ll be. Once this conversation’s over you’re going toe-to-toe with a dark elemental that’s older than time. If you want to see that as a tea party in the duchess’ parlour, go right the fuck ahead! It’s your brain. Personally, if I’m winding up to kick some ass, I’m going to think in terms of big, heavy boots, but maybe that’s just me.”

“I think I understand. You talk with swords, then, and I’ll turn them into sugar-tongs as my girlish sensibilities judge appropriate. You were saying about a cloak.”

“What? Oh, yeah. Your cloak’s the most basic thing; never get in a fight without it or you’ll get torn to fucking shreds. It’s your armour, or your, like, napkin, or whatever. It’s the first thing you learn to build. I took six years perfecting mine; you’ve got like five minutes, so best of fucking luck with that.”

“Please, don’t try to spare my feelings.”

“Fuck feelings,” he says shortly, “no time for ‘em. Your cloak’s what stops the other guy just reaching in and turning your brain upside-down first thing he does. Better you are at keeping shit under wraps, better your cloak’ll be. How are you with secrets?”

At that she just has to laugh.

“Okay, sweet. That’s a good sign. Use it. Make your mind do whatever it does when you’re not letting someone see something. Close off. Imagine you’re playing – shit, what's a modern betting game?”

“What?”

“Hand of cards, you bet on who’s got – ”

“Poker,” she says, “yes.”

“Right. Play that, but with your brain. Second, you need a centre. This one’s hard to talk about without it sounding like the most incredible load of shit, like one of Anzu's fuck-awful special-flower self-belief manuals, you are a child of the universe– fat fucking lot of good they did her, poor girl – but your centre’s your still point. It’s the part of you that stays objective and doesn’t just do a fucking half-gainer off the balance beam every time stuff goes pear-shaped. Sound manageable?”

“So far you’ve told me I can increase my chances of survival by being secretive and emotionless. I’m starting to think I may have found my métier.”

“Don’t get too smug,” he warns. “Smug’s an emotion too.”

“I’m fairly sure it isn’t.”

“She was feeling smug. Q E fucking D. Third, you need what for some dumb archaic reason is always called a staff, but basically just means a weapon, you can make it a teaspoon if you want. It’s what you hit the other guy with, when you get a chance. Pretty self-explanatory. You can use a bunch of stuff for that – hate, fear – but anger’s the best. Good magicians always have a lot of it to spare.”

“When they ask how I died, tell them: still angry.”

He cracks a grin. “The magi’s creed.”

She thinks about anger, then. She thinks about laughter, smug and taunting; she thinks about her friends, trapped in a game they could never have won without her; about everything it took away from them, everything it never let them have.

She thinks about her brother, and about dying.

Something hurls itself against the great vault door with a hollow boom, and the walls shudder. The light in the room seems to gutter like a candle, the air is greasy and slick, and then two strong hands are gripping her shoulders painfully. Marik is out of his chair and she’s staring straight into his stupid beautiful eyes. She’s not sure how his face got so close without her noticing. It all went dark, for a moment.

“No,” he says, with an effort.

She blinks stupidly at him.

He pulls back a little, but doesn’t take his hands away. A single, red tear trickles down from under the kohl.

“Anger,” he says shakily. “Not rage. Whatever that was, you need to shut it the fuck off. You can’t ever lose control. Cloak and centre, remember? You want the cold anger, not the hot kind.”

She stares transfixed as the drop of blood slides across the high ridge of one cheekbone and begins to track a course toward the corner of his mouth. If this was real she’d be able to smell him. She wishes she could. She swallows, unpeels her fingers from the edge of the desk, and manages, “I’m not sure I quite appreciate the distinction.”

He lets go, steps back, keeps watching her. “Poetry,” he says, “is a lot of horseshit.”

“...I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. Ancient poetry, modern poetry, all of it. All this junk about aesthetics, form over content, like something’s magically truer if you say it nicely. Hey, look at me! I can take any old bunch of bullshit about, like,clouds, and feeling sad, and as long as I make it rhyme they’ll queue up and tell me I’m a visionary. That I go straight to the riddle at the heart of existence. Said perplexing riddle being: some days I feel great, some days I don’t, same as everyone. It’s all hot air and misleading fucking expectations. The only thing that goes straight to the heart of existence is math. Everything else can fuck off.”

“Oh, dear. You’re not really one of these do-or-die existentialists, are you? If you can’t find a solution for it, you’re not interested? Poetry isn’t about prioritizing form over content: quite the reverse, it’s about using form to access layers of content too deep and intangible for scientific – ”

He’s smirking again. “Okay, okay, stop. You’ve got it. If I’d told Kaiba his dragons were a steaming heap of horse shit, he’d have yelled at me and called me an ignorant ass. Hot anger’s no use. Cold anger wins arguments, and mind-war’s basically an argument with SFX.”

This time she lets herself smirk back, and awards him a fractional bow. She was just about to drop a couple of particularly obscure French theorists from the 1970s, and the effort of retrieving them has brought a measure of clarity as refreshing as ice-cubes. “Nicely played, Mr Ishtar. My thanks. The fourth thing?”

“The crown. Again, don’t ask, no fucking idea, but it’s important. Crown’s about perception; being able to see things the way they are. If you don’t have a good crown, the other guy gets to write the rules of engagement, make you see stuff however he wants you to. Crown lets you cut through all the garbage, basically.”

With every point on this list Marik has become more animated, more interested. He hasn’t bothered to sit back down or wipe the blood away; he’s now pacing on a short track, chopping at the air with one hand for emphasis, and his whole body seems livelier. He’s just as tense as ever, but it’s a kind of happy tension, born more of enthusiasm than of discomfiture. A high wire, singing in the wind. On other people’s ground, she realizes, he’s defensive, grouchy, even sullen. Give him something he understands, and the sun comes out.

“This is becoming more complicated by the minute,” she says, and means it.

He pivots to face her and looks positively eager. “Yeah, but a lot of it comes naturally. Cloak and centre for defence, staff and crown for attack, pretty much. We’re – magic users – we’re always taught to think of it in terms of battle.”  
“Imagine my surprise.”

“Shut up. It helps, as a model. Anyway, that’s the basics.” He does the knuckle-crunch again and she winces despite herself. “Let me teach you a couple of tricks.”  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When she goes to leave his little command centre he shows her to the door, for all the world like it’s the end of a party.

“Be careful,” he warns. “You were right, that thing’s no fucking pushover. And you’ve never done this before.”

“Have you?”

He pulls a face. “Technically, no. Not properly. But I trained myself. I had to. I had no other options.”

“Then why did you decide to help me? That wasn’t your job.”

He doesn’t say anything for so long that she starts to wonder if he actually doesn’t know, or if he’s just weighing his options. Then he says, “I’ve had someone mess around with the inside of my head before. It’s not much fun.”

“No,” she agrees. “It isn’t.”

The great vault door grinds open, and she braces for trouble, but she’s staring down the same short airlock corridor they arrived in, with the lever sitting innocently at the far end. She looks at him and he grins with bloody lips.

“Go fuck their shit up.”

She snaps a little mock-salute. “Aye-aye, sir. I’ll come and find you on the other side, when I’ve dealt with my infestation.”

“Yeah?” he says, suddenly uncertain.

“Yes,” she says firmly. “I owe you a pot of coffee at the very least. You stay there and run the barricades. I’ll be fine.”

She makes herself walk confidently into the passageway, and with no real body it’s easy; no legs to shake and give her away, no heart to pound or guts to churn. Halfway along she turns to look back. He’s peering from the half-open doorway hesitantly, his face serious.

“Amane?” he says. “You can join the Smart Club, if you want.”

“I assumed there’d be an exam,” she says lightly.

“Nah. We’re too smart for exams.”

She smiles. “You don’t care about any less stuff than I do, incidentally,” she says. “You just keep it all in one place.”

He stares at her for another couple of seconds, then shuts the door.

She stands in the little corridor, alone again, and looks down at herself. Blue hoodie, black jeans. Too close for comfort. She pictures a white dress and a red scarf, brushes them hurriedly away. No. Listen to what he told you. Take someone’s advice, for once in your life. Work from the ground up.

The cloak is about protection. She has to be someone who can keep themself on the inside, and the world on the outside, and a wall between the two. She has to be someone who can take a hit and not show the pain, who can grit their teeth and keep moving. She has to be someone who will keep her safe.

It’s not hard when you think of it that way. She looks down at herself again: black trenchcoat, flared to the nines, and a ring to cover her heart. Better already.

The centre is about poise, and calm, and dignity; grace under fire, a flat refusal to give way to turmoil or excess, to be any less than perfect. She wraps the white belt around her waist snug and breathes slowly in and out, once.

The staff is for courage and for anger, but more than that; she needs reason, order, a torch to drive chaos squalling back into its caves. Thought, not feeling. Cold anger. Whatever else you do, win the argument. She smiles, and stretches out a hand, and she’s holding a deck—her deck, and she has no need to shuffle the cards when she can remember each one by heart.

And last she needs a crown. True sight, head-sight; the power to see things neither as you want them to be, like a child, nor as someone else wants them to be, like a fool, but as they are.

The answer doesn’t actually surprise her, when it comes. She feels rather than sees the lines being drawn on and around her eyes, extending down onto her cheeks and leaving warm trails in their wake.

She probably looks really stupid, but she absolutely does not give a fuck.

She flips the lever and the door hums open and something like the gritty sand of the desert leaps up and slaps at her face. There is only darkness, now. She’s standing on a ledge in space, and above and below and around her the black waters churn and foam. Impossible faces coalesce and vanish so fast there’s only the quick bite of panic, no time even to be properly afraid, and the moment they’re gone your mind tells itself that nothing could look like that. Whirlpools of ink, miles across, slurping and roaring like a draining bath. Things that pulse and bulge like bodies beneath a sheet. Scribbling lines and tumbling shapes and blisters that swell from nowhere. The word chaos, she knows, originally meant void or chasm, and she thinks she’s looking right into it.

A voice like a hundred voices says, deep and melodious, _Amane. Amane. We knew you would come back._

“Just to fetch my coat,” she calls into the storm, and tightens her grip on her cards. “Please, don’t get up.”

_You are nothing without us. We know you as none other. We love you as none other. Come to us. Give us all that you are. Give in to the darkness. We can make you strong, and proud, and beautiful. Let us help you. Let us take you._

“Bitch, you couldn’t take me on my worst day,” says Amane Bakura, and jumps into Hell.  
\---------------------------------------------

When she wakes up she’s cold. She’s lying on something hard, and a damp chill is soaking up through her skin and into her bones; her body’s curled round itself instinctively to conserve heat, and that must mean she has heat to conserve. She starts to shiver, and wants to laugh.

She clambers shakily to her feet. Back in her prison again. She’s stark naked, and can’t help an awkward glance up at the windows of the observation booth, already half-turning away, but they’re dark and unoccupied. Is there anyone up there? No way of telling; her brain can’t reach out like that any more. Everything is very quiet. There’s no sign of her clothes. There’s also no sign of her chains, except for two long dark blurs of what might be dust smeared up the wall behind her, and two matching bands of gritty grey powder round the white skin of her wrists. The stone underfoot is scorched and blistered, but icy to the touch. She does a quick tally of some favourites: aquiline, mesothelioma, agglutination, parsnip. All intact.

She is a little pale thing in a cold dark room, and that is all. She feels exhausted, and light-headed with relief, and terribly lonely.

The wooden door in the corner opens without protest. She’s somehow not surprised that between them Seto Kaiba and Yugi Mutou managed to create solid iron manacles that could hold back a dark god, but forgot to lock the door. She climbs the stairs, flinching slightly at each press of her foot on the freezing treads. The filtered air pouring from the rickety vents is like standing under a cold tap, and her teeth start to rattle gently. She would happily kill for a fluffy bathrobe, a pair of slippers, and a mug of hot chocolate.

On second thought, perhaps would happily kill is one expression she’ll strike from her idiolect.

The booth is lit by the glow of LEDs – chains and seams of them, – and turns out to be occupied after all. Sprawled out flat in the middle of the floor, arms spread, feet turned outward, breathing, is a boy in khakis and a sleeveless shirt. She can’t tell if he’s asleep or unconscious, but either way he looks annoyed about it. 

You can be smart, or you can be happy.

She glances round, sees a bank of computers in the corner half-covered by some sort of tarpaulin. She drags the latter free. It’s heavy and dusty, made of some kind of leathery material that’s smooth and not too cold to the touch, and it smells a little of oil and a little of old books. She drapes it carefully over the recumbent Marik, tugging it up as far as his shoulders. Then she lifts the edge and crawls under it too.

It’s like snuggling up to a radiator. There is no way the body of one teenager should possibly be able to kick out this much heat. Marik Ishtar’s metabolism must be built like the desert itself. Amane gives a small involuntary groan of pure joy and presses as much of herself as she can against him, twines one leg up and over his, worms an arm across his chest until her hand cups his shoulder; purrs. Then she brushes her dry lips against his dry cheek. He smells of dust and home.

This boy is a walking nightmare. He’s a solid frame holding up a brain that could punch a hole in space. He’s as cuddly as a caltrop and as approachable as a landmine. He thinks love’s a chemical accident, happiness is a myth, and relax is a dirty word. He sees people as puzzles, and all he really wants is one that’s complex enough to keep his interest. Amane’s stomach is heavy and fluttering with an awful contentment.

She needs to warm up, and he needs to cool down. By the time they’re both awake again their temperatures should just about have equalized. That’ll be nice.


End file.
